Harpal Singh Bedi
New Delhi, 20 March Yashaswini Deswal beat compatriot Manu Bhaker in the Women’s 10M Air Pistol event to win first gold for India in the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range here on Saturday. Victoria Chaikha of Belarus won the bronze.
The hosts won three more medals on the day with Divyansh Panwar claiming bronze in the 10M Air Rifle and Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma grabbing silver and bronze respectively in the 10M Air Pistol.
In the Women’s 10M Air Pistol, Yashaswini not only topped the qualification round with a score of 579, but also led from the start in the final to win her second ISSF World Cup gold. She had won gold in the Rio World Cup back in 2019. She shot 238.8 while Manu shot 236.7 in a low-scoring final.
Earlier world number one Divyansh Panwar won the hosts their first medal of the event, when he overcame a slow start to finish with 228.1 to finish third. American Lucas Kozeniesky won gold while Hungarian super-shot Istvan Peni won silver. Arjun Babuta, the second Indian in the field, finished fifth.
In the 10M Air Pistol, Saurabh Chaudhary was in line for gold before the 24thand final shot, but Iranian t Javad Foroughi shot a 10.5 to Saurabh’s 9.8, to overcome the 0.3 deficit for a first ISSF World Cup gold.
In the fourth final of the day, Anjum Moudgil ended d fifth in the Women’s 10M Air Rifle after being in contention for a long while.
The day belonged to the USA, who won both the Air Rifle gold medals and registered a 1-2 in the Women’s 10M Air Rifle, where Mary Tucker won gold with 251.5 and Alison Weisz won silver with 250.4. Denes Eszter of Hungary won bronze with 230.2
HSB